Ramblings and Such From Hunting Coyote

I've been on the road quite a bit the last week or so and have also seen several dead coyotes along the roads. Some I could tell were younger dogs but a couple looked adult sized. Guess it's possible that they could've been early pups.

Something else I've noticed the last few days, it seems an early change in a few things. I wouldn't say we've had any abnormal weather for this time of year as we can have a few ups and downs but there's alot of leaves changing and a few dropping already which I can see that since it has been pretty dry but also in the last few days our deer have shed thier summer reddish coat and now are back to brown. The hair change has been all this week and quick. This usually happens in October or late September here. Mother Nature always knows best I suppose but these are just a couple things I've noticed a little out of place around here anyway.

DSheetz said:

I had to have my lower back, and my neck fussed several years ago so I was doing some physical therapy to get going again. I was listening to two of the therapists talking and one of them said yes, I carry a 9mm pistol in my car all of the time that I'm in it, the other one said that's kind of strange most people don't do that then turned and asked me do you have a gun in your truck? I looked at her and said no what caliber do you want I carry three with me, each one has its own use. If I get pulled over and asked for my driver's license and registration the carry permit is also handed out at the same time. I left the house one morning at 3:00, to go meet the helicopter. I was coming home at around noon topped a hill and got pulled over, my shot gun and rifle were in plain sight as was my dog, so after the initial meet I asked him if it would be okay for me to step out of the truck and to take my gun belt off. He told me he told me that he was good with that just do it with caution. He checked me out at his car, and we visited a little and he told me he appreciated the way I had responded to him about my firearms and how I explained to him why I had so many of them, and what I was doing that morning. Sadly, a couple of weeks later he made a stop on I- 25 just out of Douglas and the driver shot him in the face, he survived the encounter, I'm not sure what goes through people's minds when they do stuff like that. But then I don't understand why people are mean hearted all of their lives, yes, I know there are times and places that it is the way you must be, and yes, I have been there myself, I guess that I am fortunate enough to be able to turn it on and off and to be able to tell when and where it is needed.

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Dave,
That Patrolman was Howard Parkin. He took a .25 ACP FMJ just left of his philtrum (the notch on our upper lip below our nose) from the driver of that stolen Ford Explorer. He later told me it felt like getting hit in the face with a baseball bat. The bone of his upper jaw deflected the bullet, skidding it under the skin and stopping behind his left ear, IIRC.
Howard mag-dumped his issue Beretta 96 into the drivers side and rear of the SUV as it fled North on Highway 59. One of my partners in Wright came south in a WHP Camaro and they ended up in a cross country pursuit back south from the Thunder Basin Grasslands road just south of the Converse/Campbell County line, East of HWY 59.
The Explorer driver couldn't shake a VERY DETERMINED Camaro jockey as they crossed the prairie (He FLOGGED that Camaro!) The off road pursuit covered 12 to 15 miles and ended when the Explorer driver turned west, crossed HWY 59 and picked the wrong location to try to cross the railroad tracks. It was at the deep cut where the highway runs about 20 feet above the track. Those boys had a religious experience as the nose dropped off and the ground was coming up fast.
They laid on their tummies in surrender to WHP M-14 armed patrolmen and county deputies who surrounded them.

I could only listen as I was west of Gillette on I-90, working a rollover semi-tractor trailer crash in the median.

Howard recovered, returned to duty and is surely retired now as that was 25 years ago.

Airedale 56; Thank You for that information. I didn't know his name I just knew that he treated me well and that he had been shot shortly after he had stopped me but had survived. All of the WHP's that I have and know are good people just doing their job. Joe Surel gave me my first ticket for improper display of registration, John Bey stopped me one night around two in the morning as I had fallen asleep at the wheel and was running 82 in a 55 glad, he did! It woke me up when the lights came on, that probably saved my life. Clent Becker never did stop me, I had calmed down by then, he issues me my concealed carry permit. I used to help Dave Thomson every year cook at the Thursday before Thanksgiving dinner for his church till the Covid pandemic stopped it. Each and every one of these people are or were fine people. Dang time sure does fly by I didn't realize it was that long ago. When I look back at it though Joe gave me my first ticket in 1976 just after I had gotten out of the service, close to 50 years ago now it doesn't seem possible that it was that long ago. I visit with his daughter when I see her at her job, he's been gone for at least two years now. The only time I can remember being treated roughly by any WHP's was in 1972 when at a roadblock I fit the description of a guy that had shot a trooper just across the border into Wyoming from South Dakota. It wasn't the first time I had a pistol pointed at my head, but it was the first time I had been searched and had my ankles kicked apart. But when you are dealing with someone you think might have just killed one of your friends and work mates, I know how that is and why you don't take chances. I have to say my life has been interesting for sure as has everyone else's.

Today about noon my wife and I were watching the news, when she asked me what does the AR stand for when you're talking about an AR rifle assault rifle? I looked at her and said no not at all! It stands for Armalite Rifle because Eugene Stoner was working for the Armalite company when he designed the first of them chambered in 7.62x 51 or as we know it best the 308 Winchester. It's a long history and most of us on this site know it but so many people don't. The military didn't want as big a platform, so it got scaled down for a 5.56 round a slightly smaller version of the 222 magnum, that is slightly different then the 223 Remington. 5.56 brass is just a little heaver then most of the civilian 223 rem brass. My first experience with the new rifle was different than most peoples of today. They had a 20" barrel with a slow twist of 1:14, they weren't chrome lined, the military had a few tons of powder stockpiled that they wanted to use instead of what the round was originally designed around. They could be fired full auto or simi auto. Today we have a rifle that looks similar but has a lot of things that have been changed because of blood being spilled due to failures. Today you won't find the longer barrels, you will find faster twist rates and you will find 3 round bursts instead of full auto, you will find chrome lined chambers and barrels, looser fits in the bolt carrier groups and better coatings on them, different buffering and buffer springs. And no the civilian version isn't an assault rifle it's a simi auto loading rifle that resembles our military rifles but has a huge number of differences. My wife now knows the difference, her nephew that told me nobody ever needed an AR now has one of his own, but he shouldn't.

Airedale56; I know where that part of hwy 59 is, I worked predator control on a couple of ranches in that area one down the Jenny trail and another down the thunder Basin grass lands road. North Antelope creek was where my grandfather used to mine coal and sell it during the depression. It was out that road one cold windy morning that I saw a bunch of antlers sticking up above the top of a hill there were nine bull elk laying on the downwind side of the hill. I took 21 coyotes one day from the helicopter on a new snow that was about twelve inches deep, and the temperature was below zero. Buckwheat and I went back the next day to pick them up and most of them had already been picked up by a snowmobiler who had been watching us work. That's also where I called in a blond-colored coyote with blue eyes she was running with another female and male on the Cheyenne river. A couple of years ago I got a picture sent to me from out there with the pilot and gunner holding up a large male wolf on the Cheyenne river. There is so much history out there in that part of the world and a lot of it will never be known by the general populace. It was in that part of the country that I got called to see if I could locate a coyote they had been trying for, for a month I got him to talk moved got him to talk again, he would only howl one time each time. We got the helicopter out there and flew where I had heard him howl from for about twenty minutes when the pilot said he was taking me back to the truck he thought I was full of it and hadn't really head him, when I saw just his face in the middle of a patch of sand grass. The pilot came to a hover but still couldn't see him he edged closer, but he just laid there. Finally, the pilot said jump him out, so I shot and wounded him, he ran, and the pilot told me not to kill him yet. We stayed on him turning him and herding him, we got to a stock pond and the pilot said watch this and put him in the water when he came out the other side his joints locked up. The pilot said now you can kill him I've been after him for a month. The lamb killing stopped.

Dave, I sent you a pm.

I have needed to do a lot of driving in the last few weeks, there have been a lot of skunks and racoons hit on the highways as well as a few coyote pups and red fox. Today as I was coming back about 4:00 P.M. just about all of the animals were either standing or laying down few if any were eating even the cows weren't grazing. We got to 90 degrees, but the humidity was only in the teens, so it was still comfortable. I took a rifle barrel to get it laser engraved after I fitted it to the action. I was able to leave it there because I laid it out then removed it from the action, so it was just a part that wasn't a serial numbered one or considered a firearm. It will also be crio treated when the engraving is completed.

D. Any pictures of the engraving.
What brand of barrel are you using.
Have you shot the barrel yet to see if there is any difference in the before and after crio treatment.

Hal

I won't get it back till Thursday. It's an E.A. Brown 26" 1:8 twist 260 Remington. The biggest reason I wanted it crio treated is that when you laser engrave it has localized heating and having done a lot of welding in my lifetime, I know that creates stress risers in the metal. It was crio treated before I set it up in the action the first time. 4140 and 4150 chrome molies react differently to machining than 416 stainless steel, in the world of knife making the stainless steels and high carbon steels, 52-100, react well to crio treating as it helps lessen the graphite around the grain boundaries of the microstructures so that they have smooth edges without any gaps between them that is filled by a brittle substance filling them in. In the world of steam turbines we used nitriding on the surface of stainless steels to harden them for around .030, you couldn't touch them with a file till you got through the nitride finish. Then a crio treatment to relieve the stress and you had a hard surface that was wear resistant but an inner core that wasn't brittle and would grow and shrink at an ever rate with the massive changes in temperatures, kind of like what we do when we fire a cartridge in the chamber of our firearms. With nitrated bolts and studs, we used the amount of stretch in their length instead of a torque value in foot pounds to calculate how much it took for them to still be tight after they heated up and you would ideally only use them through so many tightening's before replacement. In the world of firearms knowledge of some of the metallurgy proprieties is also a good thing as most of us already know, and we are learning more all of the time. If we stamp markings in one side of a barrel we have created stress in that side and as has been said many, many, time for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, most of the time it really doesn't affect the barrel or it's life for the average hunter, but when we are talking about precision rifles or rifles that the operator's life depends on them , in my opinion, relieving the stress is a good option for making everything as well balanced as can be and not allowing the bullets travels be affected unduly by lowering the possibility of having more drag on one side than the other even in a small area such as we create when we stamp or laser engrave an barrel. Just some of my anal retentive thoughts creeping out again. lol oops dry humor!!!!

Everything a person can do to make metal have a smaller grain structure can only help the metal wear well and react better to the abuses that we put it thru.

Bryan sent me this picture of the barrel just now. I had him do just a light engraving and will pick it up tomorrow and then blue it to blend it all in. The lettering and numbers are all an 1/8th inch tall as that is what I asked him to do he could have made them smaller or bigger and even deeper. I used a silver blueprint marker to lay the barrel out for him to know where I wanted it.

That looks great Dave.

Thank You 74honker; I'm pleased with it. I will get it all assembled and probably get out to shoot it by Friday, tomorrow is going to be pretty busy. I got the action stripped and blued the other day. It turned out well, I'm still a fan of bluing over Parkerizing but they both will do the job. Cera coating isn't bad for a lot of things either. Like trucks it's all in what a person likes for what they are doing at the time.